CONTAINING SEVERAL LETTERS NOT BEFORE PUBLISHED, SKETCH OF SAMUEL RUTHERFORD AND HIS LETTERS. In the history of the Reformation we read of Brother Martin, a poor monk at Basle, whose hope of salvation rested solely on the Lord Jesus, long before Luther arose. Having written out his confession of reliance on the righteousness of Christ alone, the monk placed the parchment in a wooden box, and shut up the wooden box in a hole of the wall of his cell. It was not till last century that this box with its interesting contents was discovered; but it was brought to light when the old wall of the monastery was taken down. And is it not an incident fitted to suggest to us that Basle may have been made a focus of light in its day very much in answer to the prayers, and in acknowledgment of the faith of this "hidden one," and others like him, who cried day and night to the Lord? Now, there is a fact not unlike this in the history of the district where Samuel Rutherford laboured so lovingly. The people of that shire tell that there was found, some generations ago, in the wall of the old chapel of Earlston, in Kirkcudbrightshire, a copy of Wickliffe's Bible. It seems to have been shut into that receptacle in order to be hid from the view of enemies, but no doubt it was the lamp of light to some godly souls-who, perhaps in the silence of night, found opportunity in that chapel to draw it out of its ark and peruse its pages. It seems that the Lollards of Kyle (which is the adjoining district,) had brought it to Earlston; and there were friends or members of the family of Earlston who embraced the gospel even in those |